Glasgow: Olympics bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt and Babita Kumari breezed their way to gold medals as wrestlers continued to rule the roost by bagging an impressive two yellow metals for India on the eighth day of the 20th Commonwealth Games, here today. While Yogeshwar (men’s 65kg freestyle) and Babita Kumari (women’s 55kg) won golds, Geetika Jhakar (women’s 63kg) failed to match her compatriots and managed a silver on the wrestling mat for India.
The Indians enjoyed a good day on the final day of wrestling competition as Yogeshwar hardly broke sweat en route to his gold medal effort by using his trademark ‘fitele’ (leg-twisting) technique to great effect. Yogeshwar first beat Alex Gladkov of Scotland 4-0 and then easily defeated another Scottish wrestler Gareth Jones in the quarterfinals by employing the same leg-twisting technique he had used while winning bronze in the London Olympics.
In the semifinals, Yogeshwar successfully used his favourite technique again to get the better of Sri Lanka’s Chamara Perera in just two minutes and three seconds. Yogeshwar won with a 0-5 verdict after taking a 10-0 lead on technical points. He continued his dominance in the final and made light work of his Canadian opponent Jevon Balfour to clinch the gold
medal in just 1:53 seconds.
But it all started with Babita who completely dominated her gold medal bout against Brittanee Laverdure to seal the contest 9-2 in her favour and give India its first yellow metal of the day.
